The consul general of Hungary in New York paid tribute to Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue on his 80th birthday recently. The rabbi, a native of Vienna, survived the Holocaust as a 15-year-old refugee in Budapest when 600,000 Hungarian Jews perished.

“He could have come away from the Budapest ghetto hating not only the Nazis but the Germans, the Hungarians in general—many of his survivors have,” said Consul General Viktor Polgar.